Over 60 people died in a preventable plane crash...
Urgent FAA Actions Are Needed to Modernize Aging Systems
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Air Traffic Control says Urgent FAA Actions Are Needed to Modernize Aging Systems
FAA had 64 ongoing investments aimed at modernizing 90 of the 105 unsustainable and potentially unsustainable systems; however, the agency has been slow to modernize the most critical and at-risk systems. Specifically, when considering age, sustainability ratings, operational impact level, and expected date of modernization for each system, as of May 2024, FAA had 17 systems that were especially concerning. The investments intended to modernize these systems were not planned to be completed for at least 6 years. In some cases, they were not to be completed for at least 10 years. In addition, FAA did not have ongoing investments associated with four of these critical systems.
A contributing factor to the lengthy implementation schedules is that FAA does not always ensure that investments are organized in manageable segments.
Until FAA takes urgent action to reduce the time frames to replace critical and at-risk ATC systems, it will continue to rely on a large percentage of unsustainable systems to perform critical functions for safe air travel. This reliance occurs at a time when air traffic is expected to increase each year.
FAA has had longstanding challenges with maintaining aging ATC systems.
For example, the Notice to Air Missions system, which enables air traffic controllers to provide real-time updates to aircraft crew about critical flying situations relating to issues such as weather, congestion, and safety, is over 30 years old.
For over 4 decades we have reported on challenges facing FAA’s modernization of its ATC systems.
About One-Third of FAA ATC Systems Are Considered Unsustainable
During fiscal year 2023, FAA determined that of its 138 ATC systems, 51 (37 percent) were unsustainable and 54 (39 percent) were potentially unsustainable.
FAA categorizes its ATC systems by criticality. Of the 105 unsustainable or potentially unsustainable ATC systems,
29 unsustainable and 29 potentially unsustainable systems have a critical operational impact on the safety and efficiency of the national airspace
16 unsustainable and 9 potentially unsustainable systems have a moderate operational impact on the safety and efficiency of the national airspace
6 unsustainable and 16 potentially unsustainable systems were mission support systems and were not considered critical.
Aging Components of Systems
73 systems were deployed over 20 years ago, with 40 being deployed over 30 years ago, and six of those deployed over 60 years ago.
32 systems were implemented within the past 20 years
Only four systems as recently as 2020.
GAO Analysis of FAA Systems
Top Issues: System Obsolescence and Finding Replacement Parts
According to a February 2024 response from FAA technicians, the top issue facing the agency is system obsolescence and difficulty in finding replacement parts.
The response also indicated that inadequate staffing of FAA facilities posed a challenge to maintaining systems because some technicians were responsible for areas spanning hundreds of miles.
FAA has been slow to modernize some of the most critical and at-risk systems. Specifically, when considering age, sustainability ratings, operational impact level, and expected date of modernization or replacement for each system, as of May 2024, FAA had 17 systems that were especially concerning. The 17 systems range from as few as 2 years old to as many as 50 years old, are unsustainable, and are critical to the safety and efficiency of the national airspace. However, the investments intended to modernize or replace these 17 systems are not planned to be completed for at least 6 more years. In some cases, they were not to be completed for at least 10 years.
Without near-term modernization plans for these systems, critical ATC operations that these systems support may continue to be at-risk for over a decade before being modernized or replaced. Specifically, FAA can take well over a decade to implement modernization investments once initiated.
GAO Summary
In summary, FAA’s reliance on a large percentage of aging and unsustainable or potentially unsustainable ATC systems introduces risks to FAA’s ability to ensure the safe, orderly, and expeditious flow of up to 50,000 flights per day.
Yesterday we saw the result.
It’s Time to Privatize Air-Traffic Control
On May 10, 2023, the Bloomberg editorial board said It’s Time to Privatize Air-Traffic Control
It’s no accident that controllers still track planes with little slips of paper. Congress is making the FAA’s job all but impossible.
At least eight serious safety incidents have occurred at US airports so far this year, including a near-miss on Feb. 4 when a FedEx Corp. cargo jet flew within 100 feet of a Southwest Airlines Co. passenger flight outside Austin. A few days later, an Air Canada Rouge plane was cleared for takeoff at Sarasota Bradenton International Airport just as an American Airlines Group Inc. jet was given permission to land — on the same runway. The American crew “self-initiated” a go-around to avert catastrophe.
Under pressure from Congress, the FAA convened a hearing on the mishaps in March, then established an independent team to make recommendations. Such steps are missing the bigger picture: The government shouldn’t be operating the country’s air-traffic-control system.
Outdated technology has plagued the FAA for decades. Notoriously, US air-traffic controllers still use strips of paper to track planes in their vicinity. The agency chronically struggles to hire technical staff. Its main system for preventing collisions between planes and ground traffic is decades old, short of spare parts, and prone to prolonged failures. An outage last year almost led to tragedy when a truck ambled onto the runway at Connecticut’s Bradley International Airport and narrowly missed an incoming plane.
Similar problems have bedeviled the FAA’s emergency-alert system, called Notam, first adopted in 1947. It’s meant to warn of potential hazards along a planned flight route. Yet its notices are composed in all-caps block text, employ arcane codes and abbreviations, and can be so riddled with irrelevant information that pilots overlook crucial alerts. On Jan. 11, the Notam system failed entirely, leading to thousands of flight delays. A planned modernization may not be completed until sometime in the 2030s.
The problem with the Bloomberg recommendation is the same problem with public schools.
We sure don’t want unions running the system either based on seniority, not merit and competence.
Not Exaggerations
The online systems look like the antiquated game of asteroids.
Rep. Thomas Massie provides this Tragic Video.
Please give it a play. A portion of the lead image is from that video.
A friend writes “Almost nobody realizes we are relying on a dinosaur technology when they step on a plane.”
Floppy Disks In Planes and Trains
On May 15, 2024 ZdNet commented on Floppy Disk Usage.
As computer networking and new storage formats like USB flash drives and memory cards emerged, the floppy disk’s reign waned in the mid-to-late 1990s. The end of the floppy disk era came with the introduction of the floppy-less iMac in 1998.
By the early 2000s, floppy disks had become increasingly rare, used primarily with legacy hardware and industrial equipment. Sony manufactured the last new floppy disk in 2011.
Some older Boeing 747 models still use floppy disks to load critical navigation database updates and software into their avionics systems. Indeed, Tom Persky, the president of floppydisk.com, which sells and recycles floppy disks, said in 2022 that the airline industry remains one of his biggest customers.
Closer to the ground, in San Francisco, the Muni Metro light railway, which launched in 1980, won’t start up each morning unless its Automatic Train Control System staff is booted up with a floppy. Why? It has no hard drive and it’s too unstable to be left on, so every morning, in goes the disk, and off goes the trains. It will be replaced, though… eventually. Currently, the updated replacement project is scheduled to be completed in 2033/4.
The number of near misses is high and rising. It’s a wonder we haven’t had more accidents.
Sheesh, we cannot even find replacement parts including floppy disks.
Questions Abound
How much did we spend on DEI, the Green New Deal, Climate Change, and FAA improvements in the past four years?
If I am not mistaken we have had seriously misguided priorities in the last four years. And in relation to the FAA, we’ve been lucky with near misses for decades.
